Grant: Fellowship: Prize of Excellence in Research on Aging

Microglia, the resident immune cells of central nervous system (CNS), help maintain CNS homeostasis by mediating the phagocytosis and clearance of debris. Conversely, inflammatory cytokines and chemokines secreted by these cells, in conjunction with CNS-homing monocytes and macrophages, have been shown to aggravate the time of onset and severity of chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Here, I am proposing a project that aims to determine how the conserved cellular stress response, a pathway that has been shown to be strongly upregulated during acute and chronic neuronal injury, regulates the inflammatory capacity of microglia and CNS-invading inflammatory monocytes. Moreover, I will determine the role of this response during the pathogenesis of AD and ALS in established animal models. This work will have an important impact on increasing our knowledge on the pathogenesis of neurodegeration to identify novel pathways that can be targeted with therapeutics.